This Day in FAA History: November 27th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19681127: FAA formally established an Office of Aviation Economics and an Office of Aviation Policy and Plans under the Associate Administrator for Plans. At the same time, the Office of Noise Abatement was transferred to the Associate Administrator for Plans from the Associate Administrator for Operations. (See July 21, 1967, August 28, 1967, and December 22, 1970.)
19681127: An FAA circular outlined modifications to airport terminal facilities to assist physically disabled persons traveling by air. Areas requiring improvement included: vehicular loading areas, parking areas, doors, stairways, elevators, escalators, toilet facilities, drinking fountains, telephones, signs, and signals.
19711127: An amendment to the Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970 (see May 21, 1970), Congress specified that
* No trust fund money could be appropriated to carry out any program or activity under the Federal Aviation Act other than “acquiring, establishing, and improving air navigation facilities. . .”
* Any excess of trust fund receipts over airport-airway capital investments could be applied toward the cost of administering the airport and airway development programs.
* Funds equal to the minimum amounts authorized for each fiscal year for airport and airway development must remain available in the trust fund until appropriated for airport-airway development.
Congress passed this amendment when the Nixon administration submitted a budget request for fiscal year 1972 that proposed to obligate less than the minimum annual levels specified in the Airport-Airway Act for airport-airway capital investments. The Department of Transportation, in a move dictated by the newly formed Office of Management and Budget, proposed to use the difference between the revenues generated by user charges and the amounts requested for airport-airway development to help meet the operational needs of air navigation and air traffic control. This proposed use of the trust fund for noncapital expenditures was substantial. For example, the submission proposed to pay the salaries of all but 6,253 of FAA’s 54,550 employees with trust fund money generated by user taxes. Such use of trust fund money would have been in line with Congress’s intent only if the administration had requested funds for airport and airways development at the minimum levels authorized by the act. The administration’s requesting less than the minimum was seen by Congress as an attempt to raid the trust fund for operational expenses.
In addition, the amendment extended the deadline for submission to Congress of the report of the Aviation Advisory Commission for one year (see January 3, 1973), and also extended the deadline for certificating airports serving air carriers for one year (to May 21, 1973: see that date). (See June 18, 1973.)
19741127: The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) board of directors determined that the DC-9-50 was a “stretched” aircraft within the meaning of ALPA’s by-laws (see November 20-29, 1966). This decision, which reversed a previous finding by ALPA’s executive board, meant that the union would not necessarily oppose operation of the DC-9-50 by a two-pilot crew. At the same time, however, the board amended its by-laws to provide for three pilots on all turbine-powered transports, including stretched versions, certificated after January 1, 1975. (See November 23, 1971 and February 21, 1976.)
19921127: A directive issued on this date retitled the Aviation Standards National Field Office as the Office of Aviation System Standards, a designation that better reflected its identity as an FAA Washington headquarters organizational element.
19971127: Department of Transportation Inspector General Kenneth Mead issued a report in which he stated that some FAA inspectors assigned to check airplane maintenance and electrical systems have not been trained. Mead found some employees took no training courses before they joined the agency or after they were hired. And workers who had been trained may not have taken additional courses to learn about changes in the systems they were inspecting.
20021127: FAA issued a final rule for air tour operators that called for development of site specific plans to protect the environment of U.S. national parks. The rule, crafted with input from the National Park Service (NPS), accommodated the varied interests of visitors to the parks, Native American tribes, and local air tour operators. The National Parks Air Tour Management Act of 2000 had directed the FAA, in cooperation with NPS, to establish an Air Tour Management Plan (ATMP) for any unit of the National Park System, or abutting tribal lands, where commercial air tour operations were conducted or planned. To continue air tour operations over any national park or abutting tribal lands, all existing air tour operators were required to submit an application to the FAA for operating authority by January 23, 2003. Existing operators who complied with all applicable federal requirements would be granted interim operating authority to continue air tour operations while developing their individual ATMPs. New entrant operators had to apply for and be granted operating authority before commencing air tours over any national park or abutting tribal lands. (See March 15, 2007.)
20121127: President Obama signed the European Union Emission Trading Scheme Prohibition Act, introduced by Senator John Thune (R-SD), which gave the Secretary of Transportation the authority to ensure U.S. aircraft operators would not be penalized or harmed by the European Union’s emissions trading system (ETS). Under ETS, the European Union could subject all international flights operating to and from the European Union to pay an emissions tax. (See December 16, 2011.)
20131127: FAA issued an airworthiness directive requiring airlines that operated Boeing 787s and 747s with GE engines steer clear of thunderstorms with clouds more than 60 miles across. FAA reported it knew of nine instances where ice was sucked into an engine causing it to lose power and two of those incidents caused engine damage. (See November 22, 2013; March 19, 2014.)
20131127: President Barack Obama signed the Small Airplane Revitalization Act of 2013 into law. The legislation directed FAA to issue a final rule to advance the safety and continued development of small airplanes by reorganizing the certification requirements to streamline the approval of safety advancements. It also required the final rule to meet certain consensus-based standards and FAA Part 23 Reorganization Aviation Rulemaking Committee objectives, including: (1) establishment of a regulatory regime for small airplane safety; (2) the establishment of broad, outcome-driven objectives that would spur small plane innovation and technology adoption; (3) the replacement of current, prescriptive requirements under Part 23 with performance-based regulations; and (4) the use of FAA-accepted consensus standards to clarify how Part 23 safety objectives may be met using specific small plane safety designs and technologies.
20201127: The Department of Transportation issued a final rule codifying its longstanding definitions for the terms “unfair” and “deceptive” when the Department used its statutory authority to prohibit unfair or deceptive practices by airlines or ticket agents. Most of the Department’s aviation consumer protection regulations, such as the Department’s tarmac delay rule and rules on overbooking, are based on the Department’s authority to prohibit unfair or deceptive practices. As defined by the final rule, a practice is “unfair” to consumers if it causes or is likely to cause substantial injury, which is not reasonably avoidable, and the harm is not outweighed by benefits to consumers or competition. The final rule also stated a practice is “deceptive” to consumers if it is likely to mislead a consumer, acting reasonably under the circumstances, with respect to a material matter. A matter is material if it likely affected the consumer’s conduct or decision with respect to a product or service. Proof of intent is not necessary to establish unfairness or deception.